Most Wanted Multiplayer: Survival of the Fastest

June 07, 2012

We recently took the world’s press and some lucky Need for Speed fans through our live online demonstration. If you weren’t lucky enough to be at our E3 demo, here’s what you missed:

Our online play’s about freedom and nonstop competition.

You’re free to meet up with your friends and drive anywhere in the city. No rules. No restrictions. Explore the city with your friends in a Private Game.

It’s fun to just screw around, comparing cars, wrecking each other, racing, exploring the city looking for hidden gameplay, competing for fastest times, longest jumps, biggest drifts – whatever you want to do. Switch to Public Play and everything changes.

We don’t like to interrupt your time in the car, so even our menus don’t stop the driving.

An automated “PlayList Director” serves up the first challenge, and a dot appears on the map. Drive to it, and you’ll discover the start of a new event, say a race. Arriving late to the start, and you'll just have to smash through any waiting players like bowling pins; it’s too tempting to resist! Our starting grids can be pretty chaotic.

When everyone’s in position behind the line, we count down to the start. Jump the gun, and your engine momentarily cuts out making you a massive target for the chasing pack.

Once the race is underway, floor it for the first checkpoint. Our racing’s fast, exciting and open. Winning's a combination of driving skill, aggression and knowledge of the world.

How well you pilot your car through oncoming traffic is nearly as important as taking down your rivals or anticipating the route ahead at 180 mph.

We’re not into lobby screens, so when you cross the line, you’re free to do what you want, while you wait for the rest of the group to finish. Park up and relax, explore the new area or do a 180 and head back into the race to mix it up. Taking out rivals as they blast towards the finish line at the end of a long, hard race is endlessly entertaining.

The next event is a Speed Camera challenge. Head to the location, get a decent run up and hit your nitrous to blast through it as fast as you can. The goal is to record the fastest time before the countdown reaches zero.

Timing is key, leave it too late, and the location might be too heavily congested for a clear run, go too soon and you might not give yourself long enough to wind up to maximum speed. Knowledge of the world obviously plays a huge part, and of course you’ll have to contend with your friends and rivals trying to take you down throughout.

Next up is a Jump event. Record the longest total distance jumped before the timer reaches zero. Before the challenge location is revealed you have a chance to switch cars.

Gambling on a lighter, off-road car like the Impreza would pay off in this event. Big time.

A key tactic is to reach the jump first and ensure a clean launch, but since some jumps can be hit in both directions, knowledge of the world will give you a huge advantage.

Team Race is next. Players are split into two teams and score for position. The team with the highest combined score wins, but it's heavily weighted in favor of first place; sacrificing your position to get a team-mate across the line first pays off. As does turning around, once you finish and trying to wreck incoming players from the other team.

The PlayList keeps track of who’s scoring and winning through the session and keeps serving up Events and Challenges, based on your game preferences. You can join or leave anytime.

Burnout fans will immediately recognise the approach from Paradise's Freeburn Challenges, but this time we've layered in deep ranking, persistent scoring, intense competition, real cars and Autolog™ to create something very special indeed.